IIT alumni 10th biggest group of US start-up founders: Survey

Though India's start-up scene is just finding its footing, Indian IT entrepreneurs have been at the forefront of making Silicon Valley the global capital of tech start-ups.

The Economic Timesreportedthat a recent US surveyranking global universities based on the number of alumni who have received first round venture capital funding for their start-up after 2010, found the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology rank at No.10.

The list, compiled by Pitchbook, a US-based private equity and venture capital database, ranksStanford at Number 1 with 190 alumni, with the usual suspects like UC Berkeley (160), MIT (115), Cornell (110) and Carnegie Mellon (79) all making appearances. The IITs are the only non-US university in the top 10, registering 77 alumni.

IIT-Mumbai.AFP

"Perhaps the most interesting, and rather unexpected, entry on the list comes in at No. 10 - the Indian Institutes of Technology. India's entry in the top 10 was definitely a surprise, but with that country's boom in the IT industry over the last couple of decades, it stands to reason that Indian schools are producing innovative thinkers to fuel that country's - and the world's - rapidly growing and increasingly technology-reliant economy,"the ET story quotes from the Pitchbook report.

Several IIT alumni have attributed the recognition to, among other things, an institutional support of innovative thinking and the drive to excel among exemplary peers.

India's own startup scene looks promising, with MNCs like Google and Microsoft parterning with NASSCOM in their above endeavour and international corporate incubators like US retail giant Targetand Coca-Cola announcing India ventures in 2014.